


Placed In The Memory of the Living.

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 09:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7428795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico straightens up a bit with that, taking notice of the uncertainty over Bod's face, his wary gray eyes. They've known each other for almost a year, and they've been maybe perhaps almost dating for close to seven months, and there is no way to confuse the meaning of taking your maybe perhaps boyfriend to meet your parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nico is almost completely asleep, arms crossed under his pillow, when Bod speaks. Bod's voice is usually soft, barely above a whisper. Like ghosts speak, Nico thinks frequently, but he keeps that particular thought private. And anyway, it's not like he needs to try too hard to listen to ghosts.

"Are you spending the holidays with Hazel?"

Nico shrugs without opening his eyes: Bod runs fingers that are always a little cooler than normal people's temperature down from the nape of his neck until his lower back, making him shiver. 'Stepping on my grave,' Nico thinks, and he snorts a small laugh at his own private joke, turning around so he can see his maybe perhaps boyfriend before Bod asks what he's laughing about. Cemetery jokes got old between them very, very fast, a memo that Percy and Leo still don't get.

Bod smiles at him, grey eyes warm and soft when he sees him and Nico's smile softens as well.

"I was, but something came out with Frank. So maybe New Year's."

"Oh," Bod waits a second and then, uncertain: "Would you like to go to my cemetery with me?"

Nico straightens up a bit with that, taking notice of the uncertainty over Bod's face, his wary gray eyes. They've known each other for almost a year, and they've been maybe perhaps almost dating for close to seven months, and there is no way to confuse the meaning of taking your maybe perhaps boyfriend to meet your parents.

"It's alright if you say no," Bod says, frowning a little the way he does when he's embarrassed, because apparently Nico's surprise, the way his heartbeat had gone thump-thump-thump in his chest, the indescribable warmth and tenderness that had rushed through him, but in silence, had translated to 'no' in Bod's mind.

"Are you kidding me? I'd love to," he can't help his grin. "When are we leaving?"

*

It's still early when they arrive outside of the Cemetery, but even then, when touching the old, rusty gates, Bod's expression says 'I'm home'. It's easy to get inside: Nico just has to use the Mist to stop other mortals from noticing them, and Bod is well used to how the Mist works from his own life in that place. Bod smiles at him with that, a small, soft thing that seems to vanish as they walk up the rickety stairs and steps up until the broken down and in ruins church.

They leave his backpack and Bod's suitcase there, only carrying some gardening tools and Bod's seed bag, and Bod points towards the broken down headstones, telling him who doesn't-live in which grave, telling him of lost memories that being home brings back, of his childhood playing amongst ghosts there. When they get to non consecrated land, Bod asks for his help to get there, and Nico doesn't ask while Bod talks to whoever is resting there, promising to come back once more before they leave. 

They spend the rest of the day and early afternoon planting seeds and pulling out undergrowth, picking up the trash left behind by people, and they go out for a very unorthodox Christmas dinner of scones with cream jelly and tea. Bod half sleeps against Nico's shoulder, playing with his fingers, and Nico tells him about the few memories he has reclaimed from his early childhood in Italy while they wait for the sun to go down.

*

The Cemetery is completely different when they arrive, which was to be expected, so he's not exactly surprised. 

"Can you see them?" Bod asks, because he might understand the Mist, and even see through it, but the Mist doesn't tell him all of its secrets. Bod can't see ghosts, even if he can feel them.

Nico nods. 

"Everyone is happy to see you," he says, nodding at the ghosts that are gathering close, whispering among themselves, asking 'isn't that the Owens' boy?'

Bod doesn't have to tell him which one was his parents' crypt, not after the way Bod had spoken about them, and certainly not after the way the Owens look at Bod. Mrs. Owens looks just about to cry, and Mr. Owens stands up tall and proud. Their son is now taller than them both.

Bod smiles, and it might be the first time since he knows him that Nico sees Bod crying. 

"And I'm glad to be here as well."

But there's something off in his tone. Which comes, Nico thinks, from yearning. From not being able to see his parents and friends and... Nico can understand that type of loneliness. 

He's never done this before, and Nico makes the mental note to burn half a roast for his father as he asks for his blessing, trying to focus on a small area, holding Bod's hand. He knows it works when Bod starts asking a 'Nico, what are you--' and then he trails off when he's able to see his mother and father again. 

Nico smiles, biting his lip, and then he simply allows Bod to talk to his parents, and introduce him to them.


	2. Beginning at the Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Bod comes to know about demigods, how Nico meets Bod.

For Bod, this is how it starts.

He doesn't look back, when leaving his cemetary. There are old stories, from three priests and two vicars that were buried in the cemetary, old stories that were as much as part of him growing up as it was walking through walls, or learning Fear and Terror. He remembers his Sunday lessons and he remembers Lot's wife, and how you shouldn't turn back to look at what you'r leaving.

So he doesn't, not really.

He does stop long enough to find out at what cemetary his blood family were buried, 'though, because it seems proper, to tell them he's off. He takes flowers with him, in a plastic pot, and a small spade and scissors, and he kneels by the side of the tombstone, tracing names that mean nothing to him but that should, that would have, in another lifetime, and he tells the ghosts who would have been his mum, his dad and his older sister about his life, about his parents, about Silas, and he plants rosemary and lavender for them.

"I'm sorry that you had to die for this," Bod tells the stone, glad that he cannot see the ghosts and thus doesn't have to see grief and pride and sorrow upon his blood relatives' expressions. "But I want you to know, I have lived a very happy life up 'til now. I love my parents, the Owens, very much. And I have been, mostly, very happy. And I cannot be sorry for that."

He leaves a stone upon his other parent's tomb, a stone from his cemetery, in representation of something that he cannot find the words to say.

"Your mum is crying, but in a happy way, I think. They're glad you're okay, mostly."

Bod startles and turns around: there's a ghost, there, which in any other moment wouldn't have surprised him, but it does, now, because he's not supposed to be able to do so anymore. The ghost is of a young teenager, probably about his age, he thinks, dark eyed and wearing a military uniform that Bod doesn't know, which means that the teenager died after the 1800s. The boy smiles at him, waving a small hullo with his hand.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"You... did, but not because of that." Bod says softly, carefully. He smiles a little, bowing his head. "Thank you for letting me know. I'm... not really supposed to talk to ghosts anymore, I don't think."

"Oh, you're a mortal?" The teen ghost looks surprised. "Usually when I talk to people they don't talk back, so I thought... well. Usually only other demis see us, you know, and then only some."

Bod, who knows how to ask for help in about twenty five languages, reads twelve and speaks fluidly six languages because he had a very classical education (as in, English, German, Latin, Greek, Italian, French) has the strangest feeling that while he and the teen ghost are talking English they're somehow managing to speak with words that mean completely different things.

"Beg your pardon... 'demis'?"

The teenager smiles at him, rubbing at his neck awkwardly. "Well, you know. Demigods."

That's how it, technically, starts.

**

For Nico, he doesn't even know something is about to start, and when it happens it's too fast, too sudden, too much rain, mud, a huge monstruous wolf and he trying not to faint after one too many shadowtravels.

Nico dodges, tries to parry with his sword but it feels two tons heavy upon his hands, and shadows and ghosts are barely responding to him-: he feels the claws through his jacket, shirt, skin and flesh and he stumbles, tries to draw enough energy to summon anything that might help, knowing it wont' be enough that he's too tired, that the wolf is two seconds from killing him and he refuses to close his eyes as he sends a last thought to his father, to Hazel, to wherever the Gods may know Bianca's spirit was reborn, knowing with bone deep certainty that he was dead.

And then, before the wolf strikes-- Nico feels it. Fear. Fear like the one he only has felt while in Tartarus, fear enough to make his throat close and want him to fumble again with his sword even if his fingers feel numb and his hands shake too much.

It affects the wolf too. It shrieks, in obvious distress, before it retreats-- Nico wants to stop it, or maybe run behind it and see where it hides because whatever is behind him is worse than a four meters high monstruous wolf and Nico says fuck it, if he's going to die today, he's going to make his death costly and he turns with a snarl and a yell--

Only for the fear and nausea-inducing-terror that had been so oppressive three seconds before to vanish, and instead he finds himself eye to eye with another teenager, a mortal one at that, with extremely pale blonde hair and mist-grey eyes and skin that's almost impossibly paler than even his, looking at him with faint amusement and warmth. From the edges of his vision where Nico is fighting tooth and nail not to pass out, he sees the glimmer of a demigod's ghost standing by the mortal, talking in frantic whispers to the mortal who can't possibly be listening to her.

"Well, that was quite exciting, I would say," the teenager says in a kind, almost as if whispered-spoken, British accent. "Usually wild hounds of god are too afraid of the ghouls in this cemetery to come here, otherwise... oh goodness, you're wounded!"

And, because his life sucks and Nico has to make a complete ass of himself on a frequent enough basis, otherwise Earth would stop its rotations, that's when the blood loss hits him and he - pardon the pun - bloody - faints.

*

He wakes up to fingers upon his side and he gasps in pain, trying to push them away. Nectar here would help, or ambrosia, not that--

Warm, rough fingered hands press at his chest gently, carefully.

"I'm just trying to clean that up a bit: can't imagine werewolves keep their claws that clean, especially in this weather."

Nico opens his eyes to a small room with an electric heater buzzing over a corner, and the teenager he saw before kneeling by his side. Mortal, the teen's soul says still, but Nico remains as weary as he can when his side is open and bleeding upon a stranger's bed and the stranger saw the monster for what it was. 

"You probably need stitches, but I'm afraid I'm not quite sure how to do that yet," the teenager tells him, gently, grey eyes soft. "And I wasn't sure that calling an ambulance or the police would be the best thing to do in both of our interests: I seem to manage to make authorities nervous."

Nico can't tell if the other guy is trying to make him calmer or not. it kind of helps, in a way that he blames blood loss for, but he is also parched, his mouth pasty: his tongue feels twice its siz as he rubs it against the roof of his tongue before he can speak: "My jacket?"

The teen frowns, but he leaves his side to stand up - Nico sees his clothes ruined by his blood before he picks up his jacket and brings it to him.

Nico's hands are shaking but he manages to pull out the ziplocked baggie with some squished ambrosia, pinching two bites and swallowing them, tasting iced-blue birthday cake melting in his mouth and the warmth the ambrosia brings with it, how it numbs some of the pain.

It numbs it enough to let the other teenager finish cleaning up his wound and taping gauze at his side and then allow him to help him sit up to wrap bandages around his torso. This close the teen smells of lavender and the clean scent of wet stone and something that makes Nico feel almost homesick in ways he cannot explain. It's a nice kind of homesickness, which he doesn't get like, ever.

"Who're you?" he asks. He's feeling drowzy, and he knows he should move, call someone, let someone know where he is, before something else happens, but Nico knows that he's fighting teeth and nails to remain awake even as it is, and he doesn't stop the other boy from helping him to lay down.

He's still awake enough that he knows he doesn't imagine the boy's smile, the warmth in his eyes. "You can call me Bod."

*

The demigod is out cold after that. Bod tucks him in, dragging an extra blanket to cover him, eyeing the pastry carefully before he puts over the bedside 'table' (a wooden box a kindly grandmother had gifted him with, after he had helped her trim the grass in front of her wife's tomb).

Bod isn't quite sure what he had expected from ambrosia, from what the demigod ghosts he had met since coming to America had told him about it, but he hadn't expected it to look like fudge. But, who is he to blame the gods if they have a sweet tooth, after all. 

So instead he cleans up his room: bandages and medicine and he eyes the demigod's ruined shirt, gives it as lost, and instead tries to fix the jacket to the best of his abilities, almost hearing his mum chiding him when a stitch wasn't even enough. 

Around four a.m, the teenager groans: Bod goes to his side, but he's still half asleep. He helps him drink some water, makes some comforting noises and the boy falls asleep again. Bod checks upon his side, amazed at how the ambrosia had already started to close a wound that, he knows, would have taken weeks to even start to be okay.

When he finishes with the jacket, he leaves it by the bed, picking up his keys and an umbrella, walking the two blocks needed to get to the cemetary, walking his familiar path, but he doesn't reach his usual destination.

"Is he alright, then?" Nancy asks, but she seems relieved. She'd been fourteen when she died back in 1968, she told him, and her dad had been too Catholic and hadn't allowed the usual Greek rites for demigods. 

"He's sleeping right now." Bod tells her with kindness. He still seems to make most living people nervous, at least people his age: the elderly are always complimenting his manners, how at ease he makes them feel. But, as such, his only friends have remained the demigod ghosts he has met in the past two years. "Do you reckon there might be a way for me to contact his people? They ought to be worried."

"Well..." Nancy bites at her lip, playing with her braids. "If you were a demigod, but..."

"You mentioned that you give offerings to your Olympian parents, once," Bod says. "Would it be offensive if a mortal did one, do you think?"

"Well, no, I don't think so," she muses. "I mean, back in the day, everyone did them, right? If it's only us now it's 'cause of, you know."

Bod nods once, understanding. He sighs. "Well, I don't suppose it'll hurt."

"You're a good pal, Bod," Nancy says, beaming at him. Bod gives her a smile, promising to come back later that day.

On his way back to his rooms, Bod stops to a 24 hours convenience store to buy more food, tea and painkillers, musing on which god should he give the offerings, to let them know about the unconcious demigod on his bed. Demigod who is still asleep, deep shadows under his eyes, but relaxed looking, as if he somehow knew he was safe.

Bod can't, for the live of him, remember the last time someone his age was _relaxed_ when he was around. 

He makes some toast and scrambled eggs before he lights up the small chimney in his flat. It's going to smoke and he's going to have to leave the windows open to get the smoke out but, sometimes, sacrifices for the greater good are needed.

Once the fire is going, he kneels in front of it, thinking, before taking a decision on which god he should do the offering to.

"To Hades," he whispers, scrapping half of his plate on the fire, hoping that the Grey Lady might be in good terms with the Grecorroman god of the dead.


End file.
